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4 ways fiction can help you get through the darkness

We’ve entered a very dark time of year, and I mean that literally. Please don’t shoot the messenger, but we’ve got another month to endure before it (slowly) starts getting lighter in the evenings again.

Whether or not you are someone whose mood and well-being are affected by seasonal changes, we all experience figurative darkness at some point. I won’t suggest there is an easy fix for emotional and mental troubles, but a good book can help us navigate through difficult times, or provide a bit of comfort.

So even though you might want to hibernate over the next few months, I strongly suggest you first make your way to your local library and/or bookstore and stock up.

Here are a few ways reading fiction can help you through you a rough time.

It provides emotional support

This is like having a good friend to lean on/cry to. The friend in this case just happens to be fictional. Reading about characters who are experiencing an issue or a feeling that you are can help you realize you’re not the only one going through that. Also, it can be helpful to have an author articulate things you are feeling but don’t know how to put into words.

It can offer potential solutions

You might want more than empathy when reading about a character with an experience familiar to your own. You might want to see what you can do to better your situation. This works particularly well if you’re dealing with a practical dilemma. In this case, you read to see how others have handled situations like yours and consider whether that might work for you.

It helps you consider the experiences of others

You might find it useful to take some of the energy you’ve invested in mulling over your own problems and transfer it to over to think about someone else’s. It gives you a bit of a break from your own troubles, and it can feel good to think and care about another person (even if they are fictional).

It will entertain you

This seems simple and obvious, but we can put a lot of pressure on the fiction we read. With any kind of art, we might expect it to teach us something, show a different viewpoint or even cause us to have some sort of epiphany. But reading fiction is also important for the fact that it’s entertaining. As human beings, we enjoy stories. A good story might make us laugh, or keep us in suspense, or transport us into another world. Good stories are entertaining. They give us joy. And that might be enough of a reason to get cozy with a stack of books that will keep us busy even after we’ve caught a glimpse of the light.